1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a shoulder blade removal device and a shoulder blade removal method for removing a shoulder blade from bone-in meat including an arm part of a livestock carcass, and a deboning system of bone-in meat including the device.
2. Discussion of the Background
A carcass of livestock such as a pig, a cow, or a sheep is served as meat. A deboning method of bone-in meat (hereinafter referred to as a “work”) from an arm part of the livestock carcass roughly has a pre-processing step, an incision making step, and a meat separation step. In the pre-processing step, a hip bone and the like are removed. In the incision making step, an incision is made along a forearm bone and an upper arm bone of the work in the case where the work is the arm part, and an incision is made along a lower thigh bone and a thigh bone of the work in the case where the work is the thigh part. In the meat separation step, meat is torn from bones of the work.
The present inventors propose a deboning system in which the incision making step and the meat separation step are automatically performed.
For example, in the deboning system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2008-99574 (Patent Document 1), the work in which incision making of the forearm bone is manually performed in the pre-processing step is supplied. The supplied work is suspended from a clamp manually, and is sent to a robot arm which performs the incision making step.
A cutter tool is attached to the robot arm, and the cutter tool executes the incision making with a predetermined course using the robot arm. The length of the work is measured by using a photoelectric sensor in advance and the course of the incision making is determined on the basis of the measurement result. During the incision making step, the work is held by a work holding mechanism while being suspended by the clamp.
In addition, in the meat separation step of the deboning system, the work is lifted while being rotated in a state where a cutter is in contact with the work, and the forearm bone and the upper arm bone are thereby removed the work. The lift amount of the work is also determined on the basis of the measurement result of the length of the work.
Thereafter, a shoulder blade is removed from the work. Specifically, after the work from which the forearm bone and the arm bone have been removed is transferred to a belt conveyor, the work is rested at a predetermined position by a V-shaped guide. Subsequently, incision making is performed along the shoulder blade of the work. After the incision making, the work is conveyed again by the belt conveyor. When the work reached a predetermined conveyance position, the belt conveyor is stopped, and the shoulder blade of the work is chucked and removed by a chuck cutter and a U-shaped cutter.